'Next summer, after your logging bee, you'll know what I mean. This creek is as if 'twas made on purpose for an ashery.'
'By the way, here's my site for a town plot;' as they came to a fine natural cascade over a granite barrier, after which plunge the stream hurried down the slope towards the beaver meadow. 'Water power for half a dozen mills going to waste there, Holt.'
'Let's give it a name!' sang out Arthur—'this our city of magnificent intentions.'
'I hope you won't call it Dublin on the Liffey,' said Mr. Holt. 'How I hate those imported names—sinking our nationality in a ludicrous parody on English topography—such as London on the Thames, Windsor, Whitby, Woodstock; while the language that furnished "Toronto," "Quebec," "Ottawa," lies still unexplored as a mine of musical nomenclature.'
'In default of an Indian name,' said Robert, 'let us call our future settlement after the existing fact—Cedar Creek.'
'And posterity can alter it, if it chooses,' rejoined Arthur. 'All right. Now I'll cut down this birch where the post-office is to stand hereafter;' and a few sturdy blows of his axe prostrated the young tree. 'When I'm writing to Linda, I shall date from Cedar Creek, which will give her an exalted idea of our location: at the same time she will be convinced it is situated on the seashore, if I forget to say that in Canada every stream is a "creek."'
'Our people have an absurd partiality for what they imagine "handsome names,"' said Mr. Holt. 'Not satisfied with giving their children the most far-fetched they can discover,—for instance, we have a maid Armenia, at Maple Grove, and I could not resist designating her brother as Ararat, by way of localizing their relationship,—but also the young settlements of the country have often the most bombastic names. In the backwoods, one time, I found a party of honest settlers in a tavern over an old romance, searching for some sufficiently high-sounding title to confer on their cluster of cabins.'
'I was amused to find that Zack Bunting's eldest son is called Nimrod, familiarized to "Nim,"' said Robert. 'I never saw a more remarkable likeness to a parent, in body and mind, than that youth exhibits; every tuft of ragged beard and every twinkle of the knowing little eyes are to match.'
Nearing the shanty they heard a sound as of one making merry, and espied in the window the glow of a glorious fire. Within, Peter Logan was making himself at home, cooking his dinner, while he trilled a Yankee ditty at the top of his powerful voice.
No manner of apology for having opened their cellar, and made free with their barrel of pork, did he seem to think necessary; but when his meal was finished, he inquired abruptly why they hadn't built their chimney of 'cats'? 'For I reckon this stick chimney will blaze up some night,' added he.